My reading life

My stack of Cybils nominated books waiting to be reviewed is growing larger...the stack of beautiful books I haven't read doesn't seem to be growing appreciably smaller. This despite the fact that I seem to have lost several books somewhere inside the house. I have been reading in every room we have (we have an old Victorian house, so there are quite a few), and rather than go and find the same book over and over again, loosing valuable reading time (it seems to take at least 10 minutes to go upstairs and retrieve a book, partly because, ala Poe's Purloined Letter, the book I want is hiding in a pile of books, partly because I am easily distracted and go off on tangents, and start to put laundry away etc). So rather than do all that, I have simply been manically starting new books. This is also a help in evaluating the books I'm reading--I figure if I love it I will go upstairs and get it, even at the risk of meeting odd socks.

But anyway, so far I have "lost" Moonstone and The Crimson Thread. Sigh. It was not as good a reading weekend as I had hoped it would be. Saturday was lovely--Bliss (Lauren Myracle) in the early morning (nothing like a bit of horror with the breakfast coffee), followed by Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit (Nahoko Uehashi) in the later morning (a very good adventure story), and then a large chunk of Moonstone (Marilee Brothers), which I have now (see above) misplaced. Heaven forbid it should have been put on a shelf (where it is always hard to find books), but this is sadly possible because we had Company on Sunday. Which was all very well and good, but it meant that instead of reading I had to a. clean the house b. talk to the guests. Oh well, they were lovely people and the house is cleaner, which means there are beautiful clear surfaces (coffee table, dining room table, windowsills) on which to put spread books out, so that they don't become en-piled.

But at any event, Sunday I only got one read--Thornspell (Helen Lowe), and I looked for Moonstone, but couldn't find it, so started Crimson Thread which I looked for this morning and can't find either, but I bet it's in the computer room/room of unmatched socks.

And I also on Sunday manged to read my oldest a few chapters of the first Fablehaven book (because a later book has been nominated), and I read a bit more of the Alchemist (Michael Scott) whose sequel has been nominated (there are lots of sequels nominated this year, which is a bit vexing, because of not having read many of the earlier books). I would have finished The Alchemist earlier, because I'm enjoying it a lot, only it had gotten lost (under the passenger seat of the car. A bad, bad, place).

This weekend I also read The Last Basselope (three times), Sergio Makes a Splash, Dr. Seuss' Sleep book, The Happy Hockey Family Move to the Country, and other picture books, as well as a random book for young readers about heredity. I refused to read several craft books that were pushed in my direction. One of my children really enjoys having craft books read out loud to him. The crafts themselves, not so much. But it is hard to really care, to really lose oneself in the text, when one is reading--"attach two pipe cleaners to each end of the cardboard tube....."

Sergio Makes a Splash, by Edel Rodriguez, on the other hand, is a fun read. And it deserves a detailed review...just as soon as I'm caught up.